Ford planning

Richard Blackburn

Ford employees in Victoria have been copping a hammering recently, with staff numbers dwindling as sales of the locally built Falcon continue to slide.

Just last week, another 330 people left the company, so any whiff of stability would have been welcomed by the remaining employees. And at first glance, a report in industry newsletter GoAutoNews appeared to provide just that. Under the headline ''Ford settles on workforce'' were the words ''No more job cuts at Ford Australia''.

Unfortunately, those words were followed by these: ''unless large-car sales fall further next year''.

Given that Falcon sales have the trajectory of a duck full of shotgun pellets, that's not the most comforting of assurances. It's a bit like a newspaper boss assuring journalists there will be no more redundancies, unless circulation continues to decline.

Sack full of coals

If you bought a Citroen DS3 when it was launched in 2010, turn away now. Under the title of ''Christmas comes early for DS3 buyers'', distributor Ateco Automotive has announced it is selling the funky French hatch for $24,990, drive away, while the D-Sport hot hatch is just $27,990, drive away. That's at least $10,000 cheaper than the car was two years ago. We can hazard a guess at what that's going to do to the resale value of used DS3s, and it ain't pretty.

So what's behind the outbreak of generosity? With Ateco surrendering the Citroen business early in 2013, we can't help thinking this might be a parting gift from the distributor to the French car company - and the poor buggers charged with the responsibility of taking over the brand in the new year.

Safety first

If your CV has more holes than a slab of Swiss cheese, perhaps you should apply for a job with the Massachusetts highway safety division. It seems their background checks on employees aren't what you would call rigorous. The state's top highway safety official, Sheila Burgess, has been ''reassigned'' after The Boston Globe published her driving record.

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The record revealed the director of highway safety wasn't quite walking the walk on road safety. Since 1982, she had amassed 34 entries on her driving record, including seven crashes and two fail-to-stop charges.

Burgess wasn't at work when the story broke. She's been on medical leave, recovering from a head injury sustained in a single-car accident a couple of months ago.

Massachusetts isn't alone in leaving the fox to look after the chicken coop. Remember Robert Furolo, who was given the NSW shadow roads portfolio despite an embarrassing encounter with a gutter in a $400,000 Lamborghini? And former Queensland police minister David Gibson, who was demoted from the frontbench this year after admitting he was caught speeding while his licence was suspended?

And last but not least, there's former NSW roads minister Eric Roozendaal, who, an ICAC inquiry has heard, stuffed up the paperwork on that Honda CR-V.

Double standards

Road safety authorities talk up the dangers of talking and texting on mobile phones while driving, pointing out the risks of not having your eyes on the road ahead. We've heard experts say it's as bad as drink-driving, while others say it increases the chances of a crash by as much as four times.

So why don't the rules on driver distraction apply to police officers? On a recent episode of Channel Seven's Highway Patrol, you could clearly see one police officer staring down at a monitor as he drove along.

The same goes for speeding. On the same program this week, a police chase reached speeds of up to 140km/h before the pursued motorcyclist crashed. Strangely, even though the pursuit was filmed until the police were on the bad guy's back bumper, the moment of impact seems to have been left on the cutting-room floor.

I'm sure viewers would have loved to know why the rider suddenly changed direction and why the rear of the bike appeared to take the brunt of the impact.